One of the cutest things about our dam Pasqualina, who is already pretty darn cute if you ask me, is the fact that she’s the only one of our goats with a wattle — that dangly flap of skin that sometimes hangs from goats’ necks.

I say “sometimes” because not all goats have them, and the ones that do can have one or two. Pasqualina has just one.

Consensus is that wattles are something leftover from evolution that no longer serve any real purpose, and that kids, no matter the State of the Wattle in their parents, have a 50/50 chance of being born with a wattle or two. I’ve read that some people who show their goats lop off any wattles just after birth because conventional wisdom says that goats without wattles show better.

Whatev. We think wattles are adorable — and so very goaty — so there was actually much glee when we noticed that little Pinta has not one, but two wattles!

By the way, in Italian, the wattle is called an “orecchino,” which means “earring,” so I tend to refer to them as earrings in English too. So much more sophisticated than a wattle!